Christine (68 page)

"Well, not just yet. Do you know someone who might have an item like that for rent?"

"I'll tell you, Dennis. There's only one guy I know who might do business with you on anything like that. Johnny Pomberton. Lives out on the Ridge Road. He's got more rolling stock than Carter's got liver pills."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks, Brad,"

"How's Arnie?"

"All right, I guess. I don't see as much of him as I used to."

"Funny guy, Dennis. I never in my wildest dreams thought he'd last out the summer the first time I set eyes on him. But he had one hell of a lot of determination."

"Yeah," I said. "All of that and then some."

"Say hi to him when you see him."

"I'll do it, Brad. Stay loose."

"Can't live if you do anything else, Denny. Come an over some night and peel a few cans with me."

"I will. Good night."

" 'Night."

I hung up and then hesitated over the phone for a minute or two, not really wanting to make this next call. But it had to be done; it was central to the whole sorry, stupid business. I picked the telephone up and dialled the Cunninghams' number from memory. If Arnie answered, I would simply hang up without speaking. But my luck was in; it was Michael who answered.

"Hello?" His voice sounded tired and a bit slurred.

"Michael, this is Dennis."

"Hey, hi!" He sounded genuinely pleased.

"Is Arnie there?"

"Upstairs. He came home from somewhere and went right to his room. He looked pretty thundery, but that's far from unusual these days. Want me to call him?"

"No," I said. "That's okay. It was really you I wanted to talk to, anyhow. I need a favor."

"Well, sure. Name it." I realized what that slur in his voice was—Michael Cunningham was at least halfway snookered. "You did
us
a helluva favor, talking some sense to him about college."

"Michael, I don't think he listened to a thing I said."

"Well,
something
sure happened. He's applied to three schools just this month. Regina thinks you walk on water, Dennis. And just between me and thee, she's pretty ashamed of the way she treated you when Arnie first told us about his car. But you know Regina. She's never been able to say 'I'm sorry'."

I knew that, all right. And what Regina would think, I wondered, if she knew that Arnie—or whatever controlled Arnie—didn't have any more interest in college than a hog has in mutual funds? That he was simply following Leigh's tracks, hounding her, fixated on her? It was perversion on perversion—LeBay, Leigh, and Christine in some hideous
ménage à trois
.

"Listen, Michael," I said. "I'd like you to call me if Arnie decides to go out of town for some reason. Especially in the next day or two, or over the weekend. Day or night. I have to know if Arnie's going to leave Libertyville. And I have to know before he leaves. It's very important."

"Why?"

"I'd just as soon not go into that. It's complicated, and it would… well, it would sound crazy."

There was a long, long silence, and when Arnie's dad spoke again, his voice was a near-whisper. "It's that goddam car of his, isn't it?"

How much did he suspect? How much did he know? If he was like most people I knew, he probably suspected a little more drunk than sober. How much? Even now I don't know for sure. But what I believe is that he
suspected
more than anyone—except maybe Will Darnell.

"Yeah," I said. "It's the car."

"I knew it," he said dully. "I knew. What's happening, Dennis? How is he doing it? Do you know?"

"Michael, I can't say any more. Will you tell me if he plans a trip tomorrow or the next day?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, all right."

"Thanks."

"Dennis," he said. "Do you think I'll ever have my son back?"

He deserved the truth. That poor, devilled man deserved the truth. "I don't know," I said, and bit at my lower lip until it hurt. "I think… that it may have gone too far for that."

"Dennis," he almost wailed, "what is it? Drugs? Some kind of drugs?"

"I'll tell you when I can," I said. "That's all I can promise you. I'm sorry. I'll tell you when I can."

Johnny Pomberton was easier to talk to.

He was a lively, garrulous man, and any fears I'd had that he wouldn't do business with a kid soon went by the board. I got the feeling that Johnny Pomberton would have done business with Satan freshly risen from hell with the smell of brimstone still on him, if he had good old legal tender.

"Sure," he kept saying. "Sure, sure." You'd no more than started some proposition before Johnny Pomberton was agreeing with you. It was a little unnerving. I had a cover story, but I don't think he even listened to it. He simply quoted me a price—a very reasonable one, as it turned out.

"That sounds fine," I said.

"Sure," he agreed. "What time, you coming by?"

"Well, how would nine-thirty tomorrow m—"

"Sure," he said. "See you then."

"One other question, Mr Pomberton.,

"Sure. And make it Johnny."

"Okay, Johnny, then. What about automatic transmission?"

Johnny Pemberton laughed heartily—so heartily that I held the phone away from my ear a bit, feeling glum. That laugh was answer enough.

"On one of these babies? You got to be kidding. Why? Can't you run a manual shift?"

"Yes, that's what I learned on," I said.

"Sure! So you got no problems, right?"

"I guess not," I said, thinking of my left leg, which would be running the clutch—or trying to. Simply shifting it around a little tonight had made it ache like hell, I hoped that Arnie would wait a few days before taking his trip out of town, but somehow I didn't think that was on the cards. It would be tomorrow, over the weekend at the latest, and my left leg would simply have to bear up as best it could. "Well, good night, Mr Pomberton. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sure. Thanks for calling, kid. I got one all picked out in my mind for you. You'll like her, see if you don't. And if you don't start calling me Johnny, I'm gonna double the price."

"Sure," I said, and hung up on his laughter.

You'll like her. See if you don't.

Her again—I was becoming morbidly aware of that casual form of referral… and getting damned sick of it.

Then I made my last preparatory call. There were four Sykeses in the phone book. I got the one I wanted on my second try; Jimmy himself answered the phone. I introduced myself as Arnie Cunningham's friend, and Jimmy's voice brightened. He liked Arnie, who hardly ever teased him and never "punched on him" as Buddy Repperton had done when Buddy worked for Will. He wanted to know how Arnie was, and, lying again, I told him Arnie was fine.

"Jeez, that's good," he said. "He really had his butt in a sling there for a while. I knew them fireworks and cigarettes was no good for him."

"It's Arnie I'm calling for," I said. "You remember when Will got arrested and they shut down the garage, Jimmy?"

"Sure do." Jimmy sighed. "Now poor old Will's dead and I'm out of a job. My ma keeps sayin I got to go to the vocational-technical school, but I wouldn't be no good at that. I guess I'll go for bein a janitor, or somethin like that. My Uncle Fred's a janitor up at the college, and he says there's an op'nin, because this other Janitor, he disappeared, just took off or somethin, and—"

"Arnie says when they closed down the garage, he lost his whole socket-wrench kit," I broke in. "It was up behind some of those old tires, you know, on the overhead racks. He put them up there so no one would rip him off."

"Still there?" Jimmy asked.

"I guess so."

"What a bummer!"

"You know it. That set of boltfuckers was worth a hundred dollars."

"Holy crow! I bet they ain't there anymore anyway, though. I bet one of them cops got it."

"Arnie thinks they might still be there. But he's not supposed to go near the garage because of the trouble he's in." This was a lie, but I didn't think Jimmy would catch it and he didn't. Putting one over on a fellow who was borderline retarded didn't add a thing to my self-esteem, however.

"Aw, shit! Well, listen—I'll go down and look for 'em. Yessir! Tomorrow morning, first thing. I still got my keys."

I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't Arnie's mythical set of socket wrenches that I wanted; I wanted Jimmy's keys.

"I'd like to get them, Jimmy, that's the thing. As a surprise. And I know right where he put them. You might hunt around all day and still not find them."

"Oh, yeah, for sure. I was never no good at finding things, that's what Will said. He always said I couldn't find my own bee-hind with both hands and a flashlight."

"Aw, man, he was just putting you down. But really—I'd like to do it."

"Well, sure."

"I thought I'd come by tomorrow and borrow your keys. I could get that set of wrenches and have your keys back to you before dark."

"Gee, I dunno. Will said to never loan out my keys—"

"Sure, before, but the place is empty now except for Arnie's tools and a bunch of junk out back. The estate will be putting it up for sale pretty soon, contents complete, and if I take them after that, it would like stealing."

"Oh! Well, I guess it'd be okay. If you bring my keys back." And then he said an absurdly touching thing: "See, they're all I got to remember Will by."

"It's a promise."

"Okay," he said. "If it's for Arnie, I guess it's okay."

Just before bed, now downstairs, I made one final call—to a very sleepy-sounding Leigh.

"One of these next few nights we're going to end it. You game?"

"Yes," she said. "I am. I
think
I am. What have you got planned, Dennis?"

So I told her, going through it step by step, half-expecting her to poke a dozen holes in my idea. But when I was done, she simply said, "What if it doesn't work?"

"You make the honor roll. I don't think you need me to draw you a picture."

"No," she said. "I guess not."

"I'd keep you out of it if I could, I said. "But LeBay is going to suspect a trap, so the bait has to be good."

"I wouldn't let you leave me out of it," she said. Her voice was steady. "This is my business too. I loved him. I really did. And once you start loving someone… I don't think you ever really get over it completely. Do you, Dennis?"

I thought of the years. The summers of reading and swimming and playing games: Monopoly, Scrabble, Chinese checkers. The ant farms. The times I had kept him from getting killed in all the ways kids like to kill the outsider, the one who's a little bit strange, a little bit off the beat. There had been times when I had gotten pretty fucking sick of keeping him from getting killed, times when I had wondered if my life wouldn't be easier, better, if I simply let Arnie go, let him drown. But it wouldn't have been better. I had needed Arnie to make me better, and he had. We had traded fair all the way down the line, and oh shit, this was very bitter, very fucking bitter indeed.

"No," I said, and I suddenly had to put my hand over my eyes. "I don't think you ever do. I loved him too. And maybe it isn't too late for him, even now. That's what I would have prayed:
Dear God, let me keep Arnie from getting killed just one more time. Just this one last time.

"It's not him I hate," she said, her voice low. "It's that man LeBay… did we really see that thing this afternoon, Dennis? In the car?"

"Yes," I said. "I think we did."

"Him and that bitch Christine," she said. "Will it be soon?"

"Soon, yeah. I think so.

"All right. I love you, Dennis."

"I love you too."

As it turned out, it ended the next day—Friday the 19th of January.

49 ARNIE

I was cruising in my Stingray late one night

When an XKE pulled up on the right,

He rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag

And challenged me then and there to a drag.

I said "You're on, buddy, my mill's runnin fine,

Let's come off the line at Sunset and Vine,

But I'll go you one better (if you got the nerve):

Let's race all the way…

to Deadman's Curve."

— Jan and Dean

I began that long, terrible day by driving over to Jimmy Sykes's house in my Duster. I had expected there might be some trouble from Jimmy's mother, but that turned out to be okay. She was, if anything, mentally slower than her son. She invited me in for bacon and eggs (I declined—my stomach was tied in miserable knots) and clucked over my crutches while Jimmy hunted around in his room for his keyring. I made small-talk with Mrs Sykes, who was roughly the size of Mount Etna, while time passed and a dismal certainty rose inside me: Jimmy had lost his keys somewhere and the whole thing was off the rails before it could really begin.

He came back shaking his head. "Can't find 'em," he said, "Jeez, I guess I must have lost 'em somewhere. What a bummer."

And Mrs Sykes, nearly three hundred pounds on the hoof in a faded housedress and her hair up in puffy pink rollers, said with blessed practicality, "Did you look in your pockets, Jim?"

A startled expression crossed Jimmy's face. He rammed a hand into the pocket of his green chino workpants. Then, with a shamefaced grin, he pulled out a bunch of keys. They were on one of the keyrings they sell at the novelty shop in the Monroeville Mall—a large rubber fried egg. The egg was dark with grease.

"There you are, you little suckers," he said.

"You watch your language, young man," Mrs Sykes said. "Just show Dennis which key it is that opens the door and keep your dirty language in your head."

Jimmy ended up handing three Schlage keys over to me, because they weren't labelled and he couldn't tell which was which. One of them opened the main overhead door, one opened the back overhead door, the one which gave on the long lot of junked cars, and one opened the door to Will's office.

"Thanks," I said. "I'll have these back to you just as soon as I can, Jimmy."

"Great," Jimmy said. "Say hello to Arnie when you see him."